Casinos use a variety of promotional activities to draw players to play the games on the casino floor. One such promotion is a drawing, which may be open only to members of the player's club for the casino. Doing so provides an incentive to join the players' club and also an easy way to enter participants into the drawing, namely via a kiosk with a card reader that when swiped with a player's card enters that player in an electronically operated drawing. The drawing system communicates with the player tracking system, which allocates electronic tickets to each player based on his or her level of play. As a result, players are motivated to increase play, which enhances the chances of a drawing win, up until the winning tickets are drawn. The winners are announced via video displays when the winning tickets are drawn.
These prior art systems suffer from several disadvantages. First, there are few winners. Second, losers have no involvement. Third, the drama is limited to the live drawing event and results in a few very happy people and a great many unhappy—or at least disinterested—people. As a result of these disadvantages, there is very limited player motivation to enter this type of drawing. Often under 10% of eligible customers enter and of those, fewer than half attend the live drawing. In addition, there is very limited effectiveness in using the drawing to draw in new players, something in which casinos have a vital interest.
In addition, as a result of the random nature of the drawing prize awards, players who are already spending at their maximum level may win one of the prizes. Alternatively, some players play very little and will not increase play in response to receiving a drawing prize award. A third group, however, may be motivated to increase play as a result of receiving a drawing prize award.